How to Moonboard (better)?

Hey y’all,

I’ve been climbing a few years, boulder outside a fair amount (V5 current limit) and sport climbing as well (11c current limit). Im trying to get better at the moonboard as I feel it will translate a bit better to my current outdoor goals (opposed to limit bouldering the newest gym set).

For about a month now I try to moonboard 1 day a week, generally about an hour session.

I’ve sent a handful of the V3s and one or two V4s. The grading feels hard (compared to outdoors) and I feel like my technique on it could use some improvement. I’ve watched a handful of YouTube videos about it and read the Reddit pages.

Curious if anyone on here has any additional insight into ways to improve my moonboarding to kickstart my journey.

Thanks in advance y’all!

Elijah S wrote:

Hey y’all,

I’ve been climbing a few years, boulder outside a fair amount (V5 current limit) and sport climbing as well (11c current limit). Im trying to get better at the moonboard as I feel it will translate a bit better to my current outdoor goals (opposed to limit bouldering the newest gym set).

For about a month now I try to moonboard 1 day a week, generally about an hour session.

I’ve send a handful of the V3s and one or two V4s. The grading feels hard (compared to outdoors) and I feel like my technique on it could use some improvement. I’ve watched a handful of YouTube videos about it and read the Reddit pages.

Curious if anyone on here has any additional insight into ways to improve my moonboarding to kickstart journey.

Thanks in advance y’all!

Watch people who are good at it and pay attention to how they use holds, create opposition, and orient their hips

Its good that you do only one day a week and only one hour as that's a pretty good restraint to keep the quality and power high.
One thing I should add if youre not doing it  already (also this is assuming youre using the mb to train power) is to try and place your mb session on a day that you are the most fresh (ie after your rest day(s) for example) to ensure you are powered up for the session

additionally the  board is a training tool, so it is useful to tailor it to your specific outdoor goals, assuming somewhat short term goals.

The Crimpd app has some board climbing workouts that are a great starting point if you're not already using it. It's not all just trying to tick off a bunch of new benchmarks every session. It could be if you were very tactical about how you went about it, but if you think you could use some new structure that would be a great start. I've enjoyed the progression of my climbing over the last year from having done one V4 outside and climbing 5.11ish in general while barely being able to do the easiest V4s on the moonboard to sending a couple V8s on the 2016 moonboard (I've heard the 2019 is lethally sandbagged) and outside. I'm sure it was the board climbing and warming up for every session with hangboarding in addition to structured days using the Crimpd app for inspiration. There really are such amazing resources for training these days in pretty much every media format, as well as lots of mediocre or outdated ones too... I also like doing footwork drills and even quick campus board drills to warmup, though the former I have not been as doing as often as I'd like.

Ned Feehally's book Beastmaking is a great holistic discussion on training that is pretty board-centric if you want some reading. I'd say that book is mandatory reading for anyone wanting to train seriously for hard climbing. In the end, board climbing is fun but an effective training stimulus. Use it wisely!

1, Consistency.
2, Get hoppy.
3, Arrange problems by "most repeats" to work your way up. You're right, the grading is harder, and it's all over the place even in the benchmarks.
4, Core tension. Really bite with those toes.
5, Try things that are harder. Sometimes you will surprise yourself.
6, Watch the beta videos. Some people are really creative.
7, 40 degrees requires a unique combination of hips close to the wall (like vert climbing) and hips far away from the wall (like cave climbing). You will eventually learn when to use each technique.
8, Recognize that many problems will be "hard for you" compared to the rating based on body dimensions.

I don't know if this idea can be adequately explained in words without diagrams but I'll try. When I first started moonboarding I found something that provided an immediate bump on my perceived strength and ability to climb the board(like +2 grades immediately, though I already boulder at a fairly high level) was minimizing backstepping on the board(specifically off the ground) and focusing more on powering through your feet while square to the wall. Generally when I start a moonboard problem, I don't set my feet where I want them to be most comfortable to get off the ground, but where they would be most comfortable if I hit the next hold/stuck the first move. This often includes feet very square and much wider on the kickboard than I intuitively anticipate using, or use in other styles of climbing. These unintuitively wide feet shift your hips(and your center of gravity) closer to the hold you are going for, rather than the one you are coming from. Then I essentially hump into the wall, and moves which felt like high-strength, reachy, dynamic moves transform completely into static, casual grabs, with my legs doing most of the work. I might be able to provide photos of specific examples from before and after this idea clicked. 

Another good training idea is to separate your ego from the idea of flashing problems and desperately sending benchies, and focus instead on climbing well. The board is known for dynamic, feet-cutting and monkeying around but this is only because the majority of climbers climb it in this fashion. The strongest board climbers look shockingly static and controlled while climbing. Consider it a fail if your feet cut when they shouldn't have, or if you latch a hold too desperately or incorrectly, even if you could power through to the finish. Push yourself to keep foot tension even on moves which seem impossibly reachy. I'm 5'9" with maybe 1/2" of ape and can maintain feet during moves climbers taller and lighter than I insist cannot be static'd, but the ability only came with intentionally focusing on it, instead of saying "this is the moonboard i must cut on every move" It's hard because of benchmarking but training intentionally on the board is much better than chuffing about racking up benchies that you climbed in terrible and potentially injurious style. 

Get a really good warm up. You will notice a huge difference.

Find problems that you can send and repeat them a lot when you have bad days on the board.

Work on body tension and lock off strength on your more generic training days. 

Find friends who moonboard too and climb together.